


The Photo

by lovethecoat51



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 01:04:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1207090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovethecoat51/pseuds/lovethecoat51
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to The Telescope.</p><p>Bones finds a picture of Winona and George from their dating years</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Photo

Bones was the first one to spot it.

It was technically their first date, but it was far from the first time they'd been out to dinner together. Bones would tell Jim was still a little stiff and awkward with him, but he got over that soon enough and went back to just being himself.

And it was a  _great_  date. It was like any other time they had hung out, but now they were free to indulge in a little PDA. There was hand holding under the table, playing footsie while trying to order, sharing bites of each others' food - yes, it was all incredibly cliche, but neither could stop grinning.

They were at a small hole-in-the-wall place, the kind of place where all the customers are regulars and the staff know you by name. Instead of the usual knick-knacks or tired wallpaper that most restaurants had, this one was covered in pictures. There were hand-drawn pictures from children, holiday cards from former patrons who had moved away, and photos - so many photos - of couples and groups, smiling away. 

Jim and Bones had remarked on a couple of them while they were eating, joking that they should get their picture taken, but it wasn't until Jim had left to run to the restroom that Bones spotted it. It was unmistakeable: a picture of Jim's parents. Jim was a dead-ringer for his father, but he had his mother's smile. There was another person there, a man with curly ginger hair seated on the other side of Winona, but Bones had no idea who he was.

He flagged down their waitress and asked about the photo on the off-chance that she knew something. She pulled it off the wall and looked at it, but the image was over 25 years old, and she was barely past 20. None of the faces meant anything to her, not even that of the famous George Kirk, but she'd ask the other servers if they knew anything. Bones thanked her and watched her walk off, still carrying the photo. He forgot all about it as soon as Jim returned back, though.

Until the check came, and with the photo. "So I talked to Tess, and she said she didn't know anything about the picture. Sorry," she said, dropping the photo on the table with the check.

"Well, thanks anyway." Bones immediately snatched it up and tried to pretend it was nothing, even turned to tack it back up on the wall. Ever since the telescope discovery a few months ago, Jim had carefully been digging into the Academy history, seeing if they popped up anywhere else. He hadn't found much - he could access their records, but he couldn't find any pictures of them together. They had graduated a couple years apart, so they didn't have many "official" pictures together, and it was started to seem like the telescope was a freak occurrence. A great occurrence, but it wasn't looking like lightning struck twice.

"What's that?"

Of course Jim wouldn't let it slide.

"It's nothing."

"If it's nothing, then there wouldn't be a problem with me seeing it," Jim insisted as he tried to wrestle the image from Bones' hand. Still being stuck in a booth with the giant infant didn't give Bones much chance of escape, and Jim easily grabbed it from him.

But his smirk of triumph fell as soon as he realized what he was holding.

"Jim, I didn't-"

"No, it's okay." Jim plastered a smile on his face and slipped the photo into his back pocket. "You ready to go?"

Conversation over. Bones could almost see a physical change in Jim as he shut down whatever emotions were roiling in him at the sight of that picture, and there wasn't much point in pushing it, especially in public.

It actually wasn't brought up until the next morning. They were squeezed together on Jim's single bed, Bones curled around Jim and holding him tight. The sun hadn't even yet risen, but Bones had awoken to the feeling of Jim shuffling around. At first, he figured it was just Jim being  _Jim_  and moving even as he slept, but the movement ended too abruptly for it to be a subconscious thing. 

Which meant something was wrong. He knew Jim well enough, knew that he had to wait it out until Jim all but exploded and  _then_  he'd be able to put Jim back together. Bones shifted a little closer, pretending he was still asleep and splayed his hand over Jim's chest. He could feel Jim's heart hammering away, could tell just how tense his muscles were and the strain he was under to try and keep his breathing regular. 

Yeah, that explosion was coming soon. Bones slowly "woke" himself up, nosing at the nape of Jim's neck. He felt Jim freeze, hold his breath, and never seemed to relax back down.

"So-" Jim began, his voice hoarse from sleep or maybe something else. He cleared his throat and tried to whisper. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you."

"It's fine," Bones lied. He didn't say anything else, just waited to see if Jim would open the conversation.

Surprisingly, Jim tried. "The, uh... the picture...." But that was as far as he got before Bones felt him hold his breath again. He couldn't see Jim's face, but he would have bet money that the kid was trying his damnedest to not cry.

Bones tightened his arms around him and kissed his shoulder. In Jim's hand was the photo from the restaurant. So that's what the kid was moving around for. "I know your mom and dad. Who's the other guy?"

"I think it's my Uncle Ed, my dad's brother. Grandpa T always used to say that I looked like my dad but I acted like my uncle. They were so close, way closer than Sam and I ever were."

"Is he...?" Bones had a hard time imagining that if this Uncle Ed was still alive that Jim would have had the upbringing that he did, but it was still hard to imagine even more pain attached to the name Kirk.

"Yeah, he's dead. He was lost in the Kelvin accident too. I looked up the report one time when I was a kid. No one liked to talk about it, obviously, but I wanted to know the whole story of me and Mom and my dad and them. It's weird, he was listed as assigned to shuttle 17 for the emergency evacuation, but he never reported. And he wasn't stationed at any of the damaged areas, so he  _should_  have been able to make it to the shuttle no problem."

"Then why didn't he make it?"

"Think about it, Bones. Would you be able to leave your best friend behind? Would you be able to live with yourself knowing he was about to die to save everyone and you didn't do everything in your power to save  _him_?"

Bones fell silent, trying to imagine what he wouldn't do to save Jim. They were still in their second year at the Academy, and the worst thing he could imagine their futures held was Jim's upcoming Kobayashi Maru test. He had no idea that a couple years from now, he'd be faced with a similar decision, and he wouldn't be able to leave Jim standing in the shuttle hangar. He couldn't even fathom that he would have to drag Jim back from death with his own two hands.

He just knew that he completely understood Edward Kirk's decision.

"No, Jim. I don't suppose I would."


End file.
